The Patriots’ Super Bowl odds are still second best in the league behind the Chiefs, but they’ve been cut nearly in half after a rough start to the season. New England returned a pair of Pro Bowl caliber players in Malcolm Butler and Devin McCourty, alongside a veteran stalwart in Patrick Chung while making a rare foray into the top of the free-agent market to come away with Stephon Gilmore, who made his first Pro Bowl with the Bills last season. Injuries to the receiving corps have left New England relying on Danny Amendola and Phillip Dorsett more than they might have liked so far this season, but I wouldn’t be concerned about the receivers as long as the Patriots have their core three of Brandin Cooks, Chris Hogan and tight end Rob Gronkowski. Even worse is that the Seahawks haven’t had much of a pass rush since the first half of the season opener against the Packers. Since his breakout season in 2014, Bell has turned 6.9 percent of his touches into plays of more than 15 yards, which means we already would expect him to have four or five big plays on his first 65 touches this season. Atlanta still deserved to win, and the score was only close after a pair of relatively meaningless fourth-quarter touchdowns, but the Falcons beat a watered-down version of the team they dominated in last season’s NFC Championship Game. While the Falcons’ defense has improved a bit on the unit we saw during the 2016 regular season, it’s not coming close to the sudden juggernaut that beat down the Seahawks and Packers and gave the Patriots fits before gassing out in the second half of the Super Bowl under the stress of a nearly unprecedented workload of snaps. Atlanta ranked 28th in rush defense DVOA last season and has fallen even further to 31st this season.